Elemental
by Donnistar
Summary: A set of four loosely connected one-shots, all themed around the four classical elements of air, fire, earth, and water. Last up: Gaz, representing water. :Finished:
1. GIR in Flight

_I've always been fascinated by humorism. Ancient doctors believed that the human body was made up of four humors – fluids - which roughly coincided with the four classical elements of nature – earth, air, fire, and water. Often, someone's personality was determined by whichever humor was strongest in them. Those with a lot of "earth," for instance, were often solemn, thoughtful, sensitive, and neurotic. _

_Once you start studying humorism, you see evidence of it everywhere. In Harry Potter, the four houses each represent a different element: Gryffindor is fire, Slytherin is water, Ravenclaw is air and Hufflepuff is earth. Also, teams of four characters, each one representing a different element, make up a lot of fictional casts. The four Ninja Turtles, the show Seinfeld, etcetera. Invader Zim is no exception. The primary four (Zim, GIR, Gaz, and Dib) each correspond respectively with the elements of fire, air, water, and earth. _

_This is all just a really long-winded way of me saying that I've wanted to write these elementally-themed one-shots for a while, which show off each character's dominant element. First up is GIR, representing air, because he's easiest._

* * *

**Element**: Air

**Humor**: Sanguine

**Associated Traits:** Amorous, happy, generous, optimistic, irresponsible

Something was moving out on the sidewalk. Just inside the picket fence, beside one of Zim's fake-enough trees, a black and floppy something flailed in the grass. GIR peeked his nano-eyes over the edge of the front window, his antenna tapping against the glass as he watched the black whatever shuffle itself around near one of the gnomes.

It was too little to be the Dib-human. GIR knew that much. He latched his little claws on the edge of the windowsill, standing tip-toed to get a better look at the yard. Behind him the theme song of the Scary Monkey show was just beginning to titter into its opening notes, but GIR was too distracted to pay much notice. He'd seen this episode before, anyway.

Master was down in the basement labs, doing something with…GIR tried to remember. Pickled sea cucumbers? Exploding toast? He'd been zoning out when Zim was giving him instructions to keep an eye on things on the upper levels. Thinking about how tomorrow was ice cream day, and he was going to get a Super-Double-Diabeetus Fudgeymapop from the man in the truck, and then –

The animal in the yard rolled over onto its back, flailing scrawny legs in the air. GIR narrowed his metallic eyes at it. A little warm tingle spread over his body as his eyes flashed red and he felt the proper SIR part of his mind take over. Just for an instant. This weird intruder out on the lawn looked like something that needed to be securitied.

Snapping himself to attention, GIR marched rigidly over to the front door. Then his SIR programming went idle again, passing over him like a spell, and he felt clanky and airy and like the real GIR again. Those little fits sometimes scared him – he didn't care much for feeling so…locked in. Strict. Still.

He'd read about an animal experience called choking. It was where those bellowy organs that humans had in their chests didn't get enough air. He supposed that was sort of what it was like. Only GIR didn't need any air, so maybe that wasn't it at all?

He gave a little under-bite frown and trotted out into the yard, soon forgetting his confusion. It was a nice day, after all – the sun shone warmly down through a few scattered clouds, the sharp light managing to penetrate the town's usually thick layer of smog. Every once and a while a soft breeze or moment of cloud cover would break up the toasty air, but for the most part it was warm and bright and pleasant.

GIR liked how Earth was still warm. He liked the green on the ground and the fur on the animals. Much better than stuffy, sterile old Irk. Just the feeling of soft sunlight on his reflective head brought a jaunt to his toes, and before he knew it he was dancing a shuffle-footed dance all the way across the yard to the funny thing he'd seen from the window.

It turned out to be a bird. GIR recognized the black, shiny feathers and the beak pointed like a pyramid. He'd never seen a bird move this way, though. Not even in those scary late-night movies where the birds got mutated and started eating people. This bird was flopping and flailing about on the ground, more panicked the closer that he got to it.

GIR stopped a foot or so away, crouching down close to the grass, resting his hands on his knees and watching the bird closely. It didn't right itself and fly away, like birds were supposed to do. Instead its left wing hung weirdly in the middle, making GIR wonder if a screw or bolt were missing.

He decided to check. Abandoning his sneaky pose, GIR trotted over and scooped the bird up into his arms. At first it flapped its good wing in his face, trying to scratch him with its little claws. GIR figured it might be scared, so he hugged it to his chest until it calmed. The bird felt warm and soft against his belly. Its feathers were a little ticklish so close and GIR waggled his antenna back and forth as he giggled.

"Silly bird! You don't go on the ground. Birds are supposed to be up in the sky," he said, half-snickering and half-scolding. Maybe it just forgot what the sky was like?

The bird didn't answer him. Instead it just looked up, sideways-like. It had to keep its head cocked to watch him with its beady black eye that glimmered in the sunlight amidst a mess of tiny, shiny feathers.

"C'mon, birdy. Let's go fly. I bet that will make you feel better."

He wrapped both hands around the bird's soft middle and held it securely against his chest, being careful not to squish it. Animals didn't like to be squished – it messed their organs all up. Completely forgetting to check for any overlooking humans, GIR clicked his jetpacks on (tuna-free today) and rocketed up into the sky.

Within seconds they'd cleared the tree, the rooftops, the apartment building down the street. The road shrank beneath GIR's rocket feet, becoming a brown ribbon tossed amongst a sea of building blocks. Wind shot past them, ruffling the bird's feathers backwards. GIR took a second to stop in midair and smooth them back down.

He imagined that the little bird must have liked that. It huddled against him, marble eyes blinking slowly as he petted its back. Reassured that it was doing okay, GIR started his ascent once more.

Arcs of fire bloomed out from below as GIR gathered speed, leaving a dusty steam trail in his wake. Far, far away, back on the ground, the roads had been reduced to scattered black threads and the buildings to Legos. Here and there was the movement of a grain-sized car or a needle-point person, scooting back and forth like particles.

GIR flew on. He skidded across clouds, squeaking with glee as they disintegrated at his touch. They broke coolly over his metal body, leaving him shivery and coated with condensation but giggly, too. Every seemingly solid bank of white puffed into nothingness as he crashed through them, leaving behind GIR-shaped holes for a single instant. There were so many different kinds of clouds, too – the dusty, fluffy kind and the sort that were thick and shiny, and even ones that looked lumpy and billowy like mashed potatoes. Those were GIR's favorite.

Eventually clouds started to get boring. Then GIR decided to see how high he could fly. Up and up he went, kicking his feet as the jets fired him on. GIR danced mid-air and turned somersaults. He whizzed around in barrel-rolls, thrilled at the giddy, dizzy feeling before his computer's gyroscope figured out which way was up and down.

The wind was a little more chilly up here, but GIR was flying too fast and spirited to notice. Space was just about infinite so high up, after all. He could zoom around and back as far as he wanted, without any walls or floors or ceilings or angry masters to slow him down. So he did. Flailing, bopping, spinning, and giggling crazily, GIR kept flying, his jetpacks firing on as strong as ever.

They were far above the earth by now. Whenever GIR bothered to look down, he mostly saw monotonous waves of clouds coasting gently by. It was only the occasional gap in cloud cover that showed ground – the state was laid out far below like a map, with uneven patches of green and brown and the black spiderwebbing of cities.

GIR only glanced down now and then. It was up that most concerned him. He kept rocketing on. On as the clouds became thin and faded. On as the light started to reflect weirdly around them, fading dark as the atmosphere grew anemic. On as GIR started to make out stars above him, and as his belly started to sink strangely as the pull of gravity grew weak.

It was only then that he stopped. Much further and he might float away. Then Zim would have to come get him and that would be bad.

GIR let his rockets slow to a height-maintaining trickle, hovering midair. He glanced around at the thick blue sky and realized he was in the sky itself. Like a star! The swirling ocean of clouds coasted along below him, following the jet streams in tidy paths. He could even make out the gentle curve of the earth, arcing softly around, and carrying the deep blue of the sky with it like the thick frosting atop a cake.

"It sure looks weird up here, huh, birdy?" GIR said. He gave the thing a little squeeze with his claws.

It felt strange. It didn't give beneath his grip like a stuffed animal like it was supposed to. It didn't feel warm anymore. Instead the bird's body was stiff and cool between his fingers. Made of metal, it seemed like. The tips of a few of the bird's feathers were coated in a thin frosting of ice. The little bird's eyes, which before had shone shiny like marbles, were tightly shut, leaving its head a mass of black and ruffled feathers.

GIR tilted his head to the side. He felt his antenna bonk the side of his head as it fell down limp. It hadn't been like this before. Not when he was on the ground. When had it gone all still like this? GIR couldn't remember. He'd been too busy flying and dancing and playing. But now it wasn't right at all. He squeezed it again, hopefully and gently, but it stayed the same.

A cold and sticky mass was growing somewhere down near his data processor. It felt yucky and wet and made GIR want to take a nap as he looked down at the dead bird in his hands. It was an accident, he thought. That didn't make him feel any better.

GIR let his little shoulders hunch down, dejected. He held the bird closer to his chest, knowing that he couldn't hurt it now.

The rockets on his feet were turned way down. His return to earth went much more linearly as GIR let himself fall slowly back towards earth. He crashed through clouds as he went, only turning up his rockets if the wind threatened to blow him off course. Fortunately Zim had fixed his locator chip, so GIR had a fairly good idea of where to land.

He touched down in Zim's yard, the grass rippling out in a perfect ring around him as he landed his feet on the solid earth. It felt very strange to walk around on the ground after flying for so long, but GIR managed to walk only a little lopsided. He stepped carefully over to the corner of the yard, not wanting to drop the bird's still form.

Humans buried their dead, he knew, but that seemed dirty and gross and Zim wouldn't like him digging up the yard anyway. Instead GIR set the bird down as gently as he could in the very corner, wedged between the two sides of the fence. He yanked up a few handfuls of grass and covered the tiny shape up, until not even the slightest hint of black remained.

GIR pulled himself to his feet, turning neatly on one toe as he started to head toward the house. Maybe there would be something funny on T.V. to cheer him up. Maybe the Dib-human would stop by and fight with his master. That would be fun.

As he walked back into the house, GIR hazarded one final glance up at the sky. It looked much different from down here, with all the buildings and airplanes and tree blanches blocking it so. GIR glared up at one of the branches of Zim's tree, wishing he could see the sky better.

Instead GIR's shiny, cyan eyes saw a lump of twigs and grass wedge in one of the branch's forks. A nest.

Barely thinking, barely processing any data at all, GIR popped his jetpacks back on and shot up to the top of the tree. He scooped the nest into his arms, feeling it scratch and tickle against his elbows, and waited until he was solidly back on the ground before looking inside.

The nest held three eggs. Each one was blue and speckled like a starry sky, rolling gently against one another in the nest's little furrow. It was lined with fur and feathers, woven carefully around, so that each egg was safe and warm.

GIR stared down into the nest, at the three lonely eggs. He thought about the cold and still black bird in the corner of the yard that wouldn't ever fly again.

Without his beckoning, sudden and rigid, he felt the formal part of his A.I. brain pass over his mind. The patch on his chest flashed red, his feet clicked together as he stood at attention, and for a single clear and brief moment, GIR knew exactly what to do.

The moment passed as quickly as it had come. GIR felt his body go limp and silly again, like it was supposed to be, but the instruction that his SIR-half had given him stayed floating foremost in his thoughts.

GIR gave a little nod, to no one in particular, and stomped up to the front door of the house. He held the nest safely again his chest with one hand as he clicked the door open and wandered into the living room, quickly shutting it behind him and holding the nest securely with both hands once again.

Zim must have been waiting for him, because the irate Irken was standing in the center of the room, arms crossed over his chest and boot tapping angrily against the floor.

"Where were you, GIR? You left the house exposed! And without your disguise, either? You could have jeopardized the entire mission! The house could be full of ants at this very moment!" Zim began, shrieking, stomping his feet.

"I found birdy eggs. Can we hatch them and keep the babies?"

Zim narrowed his eyes into slits of red, planting his knuckles on his hips resolutely. "What? GIR, that's a terrible idea. Earth eggs have Earth birds to take care of them. Besides, I don't have the right kind of car seat for the Voot Cruiser to transport baby birds."

"They don't have a mommy anymore," Gir explained, half-pleading. "Pleeeaaase, master?"

"No."

"But-" GIR felt that sticky, cold lump rolling around his insides again, making wetness well up in his eyes and blurring his vision and clamming up his metal skin. He hugged the nest closer to his chest, afraid that Zim would take it from him. "But I wants to raise the babies. They'll be all by themselves if we don't!"

Zim's expression stayed still for a moment. Still like the bird's body had been. His gleaming red eyes roved over GIR's shiny chassis and finally rested on the dirty nest clamped in GIR's arms. For a few moments there was only silence, stillness between them, only the sound of the whirring in the walls and the quiet chatter of the T.V.

"Fine," Zim said, sharply, letting his hands limply fall from his waist to his side. "Fine. The computer can incubate the eggs down in the lab. But I expect for you to take full responsibility for their behavior, GIR! If even a single one of those birds tries to compromise the mission, there will be no tacos for a week! Alright?"

"Yaay!" GIR squeaked, grinning, tongue sticking out of his mouth in glee. He huggled the nest to his chest, eyes shut into happy crescents, and trotted proudly across the living room toward the lab.

* * *

_Hopefully that will make it a little more obvious what I'm trying to do? In terms of tying together the characters and their elements, that is. I've already finished Zim (fire) and I'm like three-quarters done with Dib (earth). Gaz is…sort of up in the air right now, so if you have any suggestions for ways to tie her in with water, please let me know! I promise I'll cite you :D Otherwise, feel free to leave me a review! Tell me what worked, what didn't, or if this whole idea is just too out-there. I'd love to hear from any of you!_


	2. Zim on Fire

_Wow, I can't believe how many awesome reviews I got for the first chapter! You guys are fantastic, and are really keeping me going. Thank you so much! Now, we're on to Zim, and fire._

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**Element**: Fire

**Humor**: Choleric

**Associated traits:** Restless, Aggressive, Impulsive, Ambitious

Zim liked fireflies. Some of the more backwoods humans called them "lightning bugs," but that wasn't a fitting name at all. It didn't roll off the tongue or carry an air of threatening punchiness the way that the word "firefly" did. Fireflies carried around explosive chemical reactions in their bellies! What could be cooler than that? Well, alright, maybe not explosive, per se, but they did produce light, and that was something that Zim could work with.

He set the Voot Cruiser down gently beneath a thick covering of evergreens. Normally Zim was a bit of an erratic parker because, let's face it, Irken ships could take a lot of abuse – but his cargo was particularly sensitive today and he couldn't risk damaging it prematurely. He tapped a few buttons as the bottom of the Cruiser scraped ground, sending a gentle bump up into his boots. Much better than that nose-dive off the pier last week.

It had turned out that his seat made an awful floatation device.

But anyway, that kind of screw-up wasn't going to happen today. Zim cast a glance over his shoulder, making sure that GIR was still settled in the back where he was supposed to be. The little robot was reading a board book about fish, his tiny metallic hands fumbling with the thick pages every time he reached the end of one.

"Are you ready to get out, GIR?" Zim demanded. The Voot shuttered into stillness around them as he powered the ship down, not wanting to attract undue attention. Everything beyond the windshield went completely dark as the headlights clicked off, leaving them only the glow of the instrument panel to see one another.

Long shadows fell on GIR's face from his outstuck eyes in the dimness. "I want to hold the jaaaarrr," he wailed, letting his board book fall the floor as he shot out a skinny arm to point at the object that was secured carefully beside Zim's seat.

Zim darted his gaze down to it. He threw his arms protectively over the glass container, complete with screw-top lid, before GIR could grab it.

"No, GIR, you can't hold the jar. This jar contains months of brilliant of research that I can't afford to have you eating."

"Aw. How did you know I was going to eat it?"

"I'm just that brilliant," Zim said, matter-of-factly, as he wrapped his fingers around the bottom of the jar and heaved it up into his arms. Normally he'd expect this crude human glass to feel cold and unpleasant against his chest, but the contents of the jar prevented that.

GIR tottered over to his side, reaching a tiny hand up and spreading it across the side of the container. At first Zim tensed, flattening his antenna against his head at GIR's approach, prepared to step back and away should his crazed robot try anything. Much to his surprise, GIR didn't.

"Teehee! It's warm! Like a biscuit!" GIR said, giggling. Zim let his antenna fall loose to the sides of his head, content that GIR wasn't in a destructive mood at this exact second.

"Yes. Like _murderous_, _destructive_ biscuits...Come on, let's go."

The windshield of the Voot Cruiser snapped open at their approach, flooding the cockpit with the sticky smell of sap and wet, loamy air. Zim clambered out first, using a spider leg once or twice to catch his balance as he lowered himself down onto the woody ground without using his arms, the jar still held tightly to his chest.

It was a nice enough evening, he figured, for a filthy earth forest. The moon was out, casting its chalky, ambient glow across the jagged trees and fallen trunks that surrounded them. With every step Zim felt pine needles and pine cones and pine bark slide and crunch beneath his boots, often sticking to his heel with their horrible sap. GIR followed along behind, never in a straight line. Occasionally a whacking _snap_ or rustle would sound behind him, and Zim would whip his head around in a panic, only to see that GIR had fallen down or broken a twig.

He was quite sure that there weren't many carnivores out here. Not any that he'd read about in that survival manual that Mrs. Bitters had given them, anyway. Still, he'd seen the bears and tigers and other huge-fanged things that lived at the zoo and that Dib said would love the chance to snack on something from another planet. Getting eaten by a stupid bear wouldn't have been much of an ending for an invader like himself. Bears probably didn't even have access to nanotechnology.

Zim might have almost been frightened if the jar he carried didn't cast a toasty glow ahead of them as they walked. The light was a little wavering and unsteady, like the flickering of a dying light bulb. It cast shadows that were constantly in motion, sending Zim on edge as he mistook them for some animal moving about in the underbrush.

Finally they came to a stop. Zim didn't pick this area for any particular reason – he just figured that they were far enough away from the Voot Cruiser by now. He brought his heels together, back stiff and straight, as he glanced around the clearing for anything unusual.

Any semblance of dignity that Zim might have had collapsed with him as GIR crashed into the back of his knees. They went tumbling to the ground together. Zim managed to keep the jar intact, clinging desperately to it as he fell, while GIR kicked around in the dirt.

"GIR! I am _trying_ to execute a plan here!"

"What a coincidence! I'm trying to execute this caterpillar!" GIR held up a writhing worm that he must have found during the walk. Reeling away in disgust, Zim scooted across the forest floor before managing to pull himself to his feet.

"And now, GIR, observe my latest plan to destroy the human's precious _nature_!" Zim bellowed, throwing his hands above his head dramatically before bending over and unscrewing the lid of the jar. By now GIR had completely lost interest in that disgusting worm and was trying to stuff mud up into his feet.

Oh well. One day GIR would be able to look back on his memory circuits and remember fondly how he had been there when Zim rained flaming destruction down on the tri-county area.

Speaking of which.

Zim stared down at the opened jar. For a while it continued to glow waveringly. Then, slowly, pinpricks of light leaked out of the top, humming past as they beat their little wings. A few hovered near Zim's face and he ducked quickly out of the way, not particularly wanting to touch them. The glimmers moseyed on, sometimes flickering into darkness but blinking back into existence within a few seconds.

Finally, one of them landed on a branch not too far away.

The hunk of wood erupted into a mass of flame as if it had been soaked in kerosene.

"It works!" Zim barked, thrilled with himself, over the crackling of the burning tree. Another of the fireflies alighted on a patch of grass a little ways into the forest. A ring of fire exploded around it, spikes of hot orange licking up onto nearby trees and plants.

The air around them was beginning to wriggle and twitch with the heat. Like looking through water. GIR inched slowly closer to Zim as he cackled in triumph, flames spreading from firefly to firefly like a demented game of connect-the-dots.

"It's gettin' pretty hot," GIR said softly, backing up against Zim's thigh.

"Exactly!"

It was a fantastic spectacle. Zim planted his knuckles on his hips, reveling in the warmth of his destruction. His laughter mingled perfectly with the crackling of the burning forest. Trees popped and exploded like popcorn around them as the blaze grew white-hot, slicing into the midnight darkness and casting a scorching glow up toward the sky.

Zim took a deep breath, letting the beautiful smell of fire fill every pocket of air in his body. It was smoky and stinging, a smell that whiplashed him back to all that exploding and burning and ruining he'd gotten to do during Operation Impending Doom 1. Those had been _real_ fires – melting causeways, crashing academies, bringing years of labor down to ash in hours.

Sure, sure, it had been on Irk. Whatever. Minor details. It was the quality of your destruction that mattered, not the location, right?

His fingers clenched and unclenched by his sides. The raw energy of the burning forest seemed to soak into him, ethereal, the moment hovering inside him. As weird and tenuous as the non-matter place that fire occupied. It wasn't solid, wasn't touchable or containable, but it existed nonetheless.

Animals started to flee around them – great flocks of birds abandoned their nests and shot up and away, squirrels chittered from branch to branch as the fire spread, and a fat raccoon tottered very near to them as it tried to get away.

GIR made as if to follow it, but Zim hooked a claw around his collar. It proved more difficult than he'd expected; sweat had started to pool inside of his gloves from the heat of the fire. Zim felt the tips of his antenna starting to curl against his head, the nerves inside itching uncomfortably.

As glorious as it was to watch the mighty earth trees crumble to ash and to see the filthy mammals run in horror from his brilliant fireflies, Zim was beginning to feel a little crawly.

Opening his eyes, squinting in the brightness, he cast about for the path back to the Voot cruiser. He could barely see past the fire by now. It had crept all around them into a spectacular arena of melding orange, flickering off into the distance like wavering mountains. Here and there he could make out the top of a tree that was still standing. Until flames snaked up to the highest branches and it collapsed in on itself into the orange-yellow sea, that is.

GIR butted his head up under Zim's armpit. His metal head was nearly hot enough to burn, but when Zim tried to step backwards his boot struck a smoldering patch of grass.

"Well, GIR, I think that we've basked in the glory of my success quite enough," Zim said. He felt his tunic starting to stick unpleasantly to his stomach as he inched slowly away from one wall of fire, only to have his back arch from another pang of heat.

They ought to be making their way back to the Voot, he decided. Zim snapped himself to attention, wrapping one hand tightly around GIR's wrist, wincing at the robot's hot steel skin.

"Yaay! We's like s'mores!" Gir squeaked.

"No, GIR. No camping foods," Zim mumbled back, twitching his eyes back and forth as he looked for a way through the flickering inferno. It was just so bright. Almost too much for his spectacular eyes to bear.

Zim tried to stare at the ground, at the narrowing path of grass remaining. It was difficult for him to drag his gaze away from his beautiful fire, but if he stared at it much longer his corneas might start to melt. Zim started walking faster, past the place where he'd set the jar. It was totally engulfed in flames by now.

They had to get away – and soon – or else they'd be nothing but two steaming puddles of failed invasion goo.

His boots skidded against the grass as he ran, slick with condensation from the heat. Here and there he would nearly fall, his innards clenching coldly as he managed to avoid falling head-first into the orange. Sweat was dripping distractingly down his antenna.

Which direction had he parked the Cruiser in? Over near that tree, maybe?

Panting, tightening his grip around GIR's wrist, Zim headed toward one of the few trees that were still standing. The little path that remained was closing in fast. Zim's eyes flicked often toward his goal, toward the little stand of trees where he'd parked the ship. It wasn't so far. If only he'd stop stumbling over smoldering logs or getting GIR's feet stuck on pieces of woody debris.

One of his fireflies was drifting lazily above the blaze, like an ember on its own. Zim half watched it, mesmerized, before it buzzed over to the black lace trees and lit them up. Within seconds, the place he'd been aiming for was camouflaged against the rest of the ruins.

Now he had no landmark.

Zim whipped his head around, lost amidst the sea of red. The sky had gone black above them with smoke thick like fog. No more stars to be seen. Only roiling orange and billowing, dusty blackness.

He tried to backtrack, stepping tentatively away, maybe find another trail to the Voot. Everywhere his feet touched fire. Everywhere was hot, moving, like being swallowed by a great monster. The burning forest itself was trying to digest them.

GIR pressed the side of his head up against Zim's hip as a spurt of flame licked toward them. "How do we get away?"

"Use your rockets!" Zim instructed. The heat itself was crushing them like a fog by now, so thick that Zim felt sure he could touch it. Everything was so bright. It was a struggle to see the dark sky at all because of all the brilliant flickering. Zim's eyes ached and he screwed them tightly shut as he grabbed GIR's shoulders.

"I can't," GIR squeaked.

"Why not? What's wrong with them?" Hot air was scorching painfully at Zim's lungs as he took quick and panicked breaths. Every instant they stood here was another instant that the fire moved in on them. His head was starting to swim, muddled by the thickness and the heat.

"They's overheatin'" said GIR simply, holding one foot out in front of him. Sparks hiccupped from the base before sputtering out onto the crispy grass, utterly useless.

"Oh sweet IRK."

Zim felt suddenly sick. Amidst the waffling air and blinding white ring of fire, an icy fluid was rising up in Zim's insides like mercury. This wasn't supposed to happen. He wasn't supposed to be trapped by his own ingenious destruction. Sure, he liked fire – loved it, in fact – but not when it was pressing in on all sides on he and GIR so unyielding.

There'd be nothing left of him but his Pak. It could withstand any temperatures. But not his squishy meat-body – it was fragile and finite. Perfectly burnable.

Maybe if he could –

But no. Zim scooped up GIR in his arms, yanking him away from the crawling flames and cringing as the hot metal pressed against his skin. It was getting harder to think now – his thoughts were wriggling and uneven enough, but the roaring of the blaze and the snapping cracking smashing of wood blocked out very sophisticated ideas.

He couldn't feel GIR's wriggling anymore. Everything was white and hot – scorching, melting, the surface of the sun so close. And then –

"You stupid alien!"

_Geez_.

What an unbelievable cruelty. Evidently Zim's Pak was malfunctioning, to make the voice of his eternal rival sound in his head during his last moments. This really sucked. Zim had hoped that if he was going to burn to death, at least he'd have the opportunity to relive all of his life's glorious victories.

Few though they'd been.

"Zim, you moron! Grab the rope!"

There was that voice again. Coming from above them. Zim opened his near-melted eyes, glancing up at the pinprick of dark sky left. In the middle of it dangled a steel wire, attached to nothing that Zim could make out. A blessing from nowhere.

Maybe this was how you got to the afterlife, who knew.

Zim reached up and grabbed the metal rope, GIR latching on around his neck with scorching arms. Winding it around his wrist, Zim gave the wire a single yank, wishing that the afterlife would make with the glorious rewards and banishing of pain and all that crap, because his skin was starting to feel a little crinkly.

Instead the rope yanked back.

In a flurry of motion, like a Pak leg retracting back into its slot, Zim felt them both being sucked up into the air. His innards shot down into his feet as gravity fought against the movement. Suddenly he was cool all over, nearly freezing, numb with the absence of burning. For a second or so.

And then the next thing he knew Zim felt pain all over as he was bundled head-over-boots onto some cold metal floor. GIR was latched suffocatingly around his neck, cutting off that cold, sweet air that tasted delicious like soda. The darkness all around them was complete and pressing.

Zim's first thought was of outer space.

His second was of those stupid boots rammed nearly into his face.

"Dear _God_ Zim, you smell. I don't know if it's alien sweat or well-roasted alien skin or _what_, but if I have to get the ship's seats dry cleaned then you're going to pay for it," Dib was saying, tapping his boot against the steel floor.

With a motion that was as much flailing as anything, Zim managed to roll over onto his back. He stared up through the pinkish tinge of Tak's ship's windshield at the blinking stars beyond. It was difficult to tell which were real stars and which were places where he's scorched his retinas, but it was a relieving darkness at any rate.

"I did not need your help, _infidel_," Zim growled, through cracked lips and lungs that crinkled inside of him like paper.

Dib crouched down next to him, offensively close. "Infidel? That's a new one. Feeling religious, space-boy?"

"Religious? Hardly. As soon as I get the feeling back in my spine, I'm going to have your freakishly huge head vacuum-packed into a test tube as punishment for interrupting my perfectly-under-control forest burning project."

"I figured you were behind that fire. Saw it from the roof. Natural forest fires don't usually spread that fast, you know. Lightening bugs don't cause them, either."

"I _know_ that. I was just trying to correct some of the mistakes that your stupid natural selection made. Only a human would be stupid enough to call something a _firefly_ that can't even start a little blaze on its own."

Zim propped himself up on his elbows, glaring Dib down as seriously as he could with eyes that would barely focus and a head that felt overfull of water. Finally GIR let go of his neck, sliding down onto the floor of Tak's ship as if nothing was wrong and tottering over to an empty fast-food bag in the corner.

"Right." Dib rolled his eyes, infuriatingly. "But you owe me one now. I didn't let you get roasted like a green marshmallow. Score's one-fourteen to one-twenty now, just so you know."

With that, Dib stood back up to his full height, head nearly banging against the roof of the Irken-sized cockpit, and squished himself in behind the ship's control panel. Zim allowed himself a subtle peek out the glass. His glorious, ruinous fire shrank beneath them as the ship gained altitude, reduced to the flickering of a match amidst the hairy blackness of the forest.

* * *

_Blargh, I don't like this one as much as I liked GIR's. This just feels a lot less…nuanced and subtle than GIR's chapter. I dunno, I guess Zim isn't very nuanced OR subtle, but still. Zim's still really difficult for me to write. It's hard for me to get inside of that weird head of his._

_Dib's up next, though. He's earth. I personally would categorize myself as a very "earth" person, so maybe his will feel a little more natural, who knows. I'm still kicking around some ideas for Gaz/water. Lots of my peeps on Tumblr have made great suggestions involving ice, controlling rain, water levels in video games, and bad weather on an ocean/lake. My beautiful reviewers have also suggested ways to connect Gaz's emotional passivity to water, which is great too!_

_Nothing about Gaz's bit is quite set in stone yet. But maybe by the next chapter I'll have it better figured out. Otherwise, thanks so much for reading! I couldn't do it without your guys' support. Feel free to leave a review if something about this chapter didn't seem quite right, or if you actually liked it!_


	3. Dib below Ground

_Kay kay. Sorry this is a bit late, guys. I took a bit of a break to work on a Dib/Gretchen oneshot that I may or may not post at some point (although if you want to read it, it IS on my Tumblr blog, so you can check it out over there)._

_It's time for Dib's adventures in earth. This chapter's a little bit…weirder than the others, I think. Opinions held by the characters don't necessarily reflect opinions held by the author. So if it was too out there for your tastes, don't be afraid to let me know! On with the show, as it is._

* * *

**Element**: Earth

**Humor**: Melancholic

**Associated traits:** Somber, anxious, thoughtful, stubborn, introverted

The entrance to the cave was narrow. Dib nearly missed it as he walked by the grassy hill – the burrow was half-covered in weeds, dirt cascading down across the dark tunnel like a waterfall. He stopped dead in his tracks as soon as he spotted the little sink-hole. The map he was holding limply in one hand crinkled in the soft afternoon breeze while he stared at the cave.

This had to be the one. He'd heard that there were monsters that lived deep underground here, scrabbling around below the earth in great caverns, coming to the surface only to feed on the flesh of tender surface-dwellers.

So he'd read on the message board, anyway.

It was worth a shot.

Dib heaved his messenger bag around his shoulder, stashing the map away in one of the side pockets. His watch told him that it was only something like 3:00 in the afternoon – still plenty of sunlight left, and he'd parked Tak's ship only a little bit away. Certainly enough time for some exploring and note-taking.

He knelt down beside the cave entrance, feeling a blush of cool, dry air whoosh past his face from underground. The tunnel itself snaked deep down into oblivion. He couldn't see even a few feet past the grass-framed hole – only inky blackness and a whiff of earthy scent leaking out from beneath the earth.

Dib fished a little flashlight out of his bag, flicking it on and sticking it down into his chest pocket so that the light shone up around his face. He'd read too many horror stories about people falling to their deaths into unseen holes or starving to death in dead-ends to risk going down without a light.

Rolling his jacket sleeves back and straightening his glasses, Dib headed for the cave. It took him quite a bit of wriggling to work his big head and shoulder bag and heavy boots in through the narrow tunnel. Roots stuck to his clothes as he went, dirt caking onto his shoulders and gritting in his hair. Dib made a mental note to take a good shower when he got back.

Finally he managed to work his way in. The cave opened up quite a bit past the entrance. His light cast long, pointed shadows all around, illuminating jagged stone walls and a floor crusted with silty rainwash.

Dib walked on, descending into the edged darkness.

He tried to keep his ears open (if that even made sense), straining for anything that sounded like a snarl or chomp or swishing tail. Instead he heard only the distant drip-drip-drip of stalactites forming, one molecule of lime at a time. Occasionally there was the deep rumbling of the earth itself, moaning through the caves like the creaking of a ship's steel walls. It shifted in its own quiet, subtle way, he supposed, the great lava-floating plates rubbing against one another like debris bumping in the surf.

If Dib was unlucky he sometimes heard a stone falling, the sharp clatter stiffening his spine and running an icy blade of adrenaline up under his skin. He whipped his head around, staring hard into the darkness where his dinky light failed. Usually he just started to see weird colors and shifting nothingness in the black, so he forced himself to walk further on.

The idea of hallucinating down here was horrifying. He tried to find things to focus on. He stared at the white streaking and rainbow sediment that spread down across the cave walls like fingerpainting. He counted the jagged spikes that rammed down from the ceiling to meet their pointed stalagmite mates in the middle of the great underground rooms.

Here and there he found rocks that the gentle dissolving of water had carved into lumpy sculptures. Or he stared down into underground ponds, the water so perfectly clear and still that it passed for glass until he impulsively tossed a rock in and shattered the flawless surface.

Dib stalked out into yet another room, his boots clicking softly against the sandy ground. This one was smaller than the others he'd passed through, only about as big is his bedroom. Here the ceiling was smooth, unmarred by limestone drippings that pricked down toward him in toothy daggers.

He tipped his head up, toward the sky of the underearth, and doubletook because the scratches and dirt-stains he thought he saw there weren't flaws at all.

Instead the ceiling was marked with drawings. Here an antelope leapt across a minimalist plain, reduced to its simplest lines and purest, curving shapes. There was a lion, its mane brushed on by a fluffed-up reed as it stalked across the flat and dusty savannah. Each color was muted and muddy, the shadows etched with soot.

He tried to imagine some ancient boy like himself, crawling around here in the dust, deep beneath the sun-warmed surface. He tried to imagine lighting the place with a candle that he'd made himself, the spastic light flickering in a tiny circle as he painted the world above. His fingers flexed. Fingers that had built so much but created so little. Dib was no artist. The ancients drew these perfect, simple beasts and breathed life into them as they did so.

Dib turned very slowly on his heel, his eyes raking across every inch of the Stone Age canvas. He felt like so many pilgrims with their necks craned up in the Sistine Chapel, only here was a mural to the ancientness of his race itself rather than to a temporary deity.

He rolled his eyes at his own cynicism.

Humanity wasn't even that ancient anyway, he realized. Zim had certainly shown him that. The Irken Empire had been doing its thing for a billion years.

Dib's people were still rolling around in the dirt and eating roots.

Comparatively, that was. And literally on occasion. They were miniscule and barbaric, still animals in every sense, with their wars over patches of dirt and court television and internet filled with nothing but porn.

_An animal couldn't make this, though, could it?_

One of the hand-painted mammoths winked down at him, the wavy curves of its sketched-on fur seeming to move in the flickering light. Dib cricked his neck. The snap of his tendons echoed deep into the cave as he tore his eyes from the mural.

Even if Zim burned all of humanity to the ground tomorrow, these paintings would still be here. Safe beneath the surface, perfectly preserved in the cool air and pressing darkness. Such permanence had to mean something.

Speaking of permanence. Dib snapped his head around at the jagged cave walls, at the inky black tunnels that snaked out into oblivion, and wondered if it was still dark outside. He felt like he'd been walking for a while. He'd been stepping places no human had stepped in millennia, breathing air untainted and casting light on corners that had only ever known darkness.

He could make his peace with not seeing the Cheeby Forest Monster if it meant all of that other neat stuff.

Except…

Dib turned on his heel, his messenger bag swinging around his hip and the light from the flashlight wavering. There were four or five different exits from this room, all equally cavernous and black. He held out one hand, awkwardly, hoping to feel a bit of breeze from one of them, but the damp air was still.

His eyes flicked to the ground. Maybe he'd left behind a bootprint or a mark somewhere that would tell him which tunnel he'd come from?

The wonder and fascination that had filled him only moments before slipped into a fearful sickness. He felt chills sifting up under his skin, fingers shaking ever so slightly as he scanned every inch of the room for a sign, a signal, an _anything_ that would show him the right way to go.

Dib tried not to panic. He tried to count his breaths as he took them, balling his hands into fists to keep them from shaking.

If he stayed here, the still quietness would drive him mad.

Or it could have, if his flashlight hadn't begun flickering.

Dib's mind flailed about just like his arms as he tried to yank the little light out of his pocket. He tapped on the bottom, flicked the switch on and off as the bulb strobed waveringly. Were the batteries dead? Was the moisture down here messing up the circuits? He wasn't sure.

The periods of darkness were getting more frequent. He tried desperately to keep the flashlight on, shaking it back and forth, listening to the batteries rattling inside as the earthy room flashed in and out of existence around him.

And then it was dark.

Dib tightened his fingers around the plastic barrel of the flashlight as if it were a weapon. He'd had bad eyes since he was a baby, but that didn't make much difference now. This kind of blackness was absolute. He held one hand in front of his eyes, feeling foolish in the motion, and saw nothing.

Where there had been tunnels and rocks and walls before was nothing. The air ached with silence. Darkness pressed in on him, black and thick like water. Crushing into oblivion.

This place was a purgatory.

He took a careful step forward, tapping around the floor with the tip of his boot. Throwing his arms out in front of him, Dib made his way to one of the walls. It felt coolly solid as he went. It was a relief to touch something tangible.

Dib stumbled along the wall, skinning his knuckles on the rough surface as he tried to stay close to it. He had no idea which way he was going. The ground wasn't sloping appreciably up or down. Maybe he was even going back the way he'd come?

He shook his head and kept walking deeper into the earth. Occasionally he'd half-fall into an unseen puddle and then panic trying to remember which direction he'd been travelling, the cold water soaking up into his jean and chilling him to the bone. Or else he'd ram the tip of his foot painfully into a stone or bruise up his shin.

Before long Dib was a walking mass of sores, and blind into the bargain.

Always dark. Always black. Every inch of rock that Dib's fingers grazed over was met with fear. The next touch could be a rock scorpion. The next dip in the ground could be a ravine that threw him to his death.

The weird underground pressure was making his ears pop. Everything sounded so distant, echoing, making it difficult to tell what direction it had come from. Like mockery.

If he couldn't find a way out, he'd die in the dark and the silence. Alone.

They'd find him, a thousand years from now, dried down to a bone-lined husk to be dusted off by archeologists.

"What was this boy doing down here?" they'd ask.

Maybe he was a sacrifice to an earth god.

Maybe he was banished for committing a terrible crime.

Or maybe he was just a paranormal investigator who tended to get in over his oversized head.

Something flickered in the darkness, forcing thoughts of death and mummification from his mind. It was gone as quickly as it had come, numbing over his eyes and leaving his brain empty in shock.

It had been a little burst of fire.

A match, almost.

Dib wondered at first if he'd seen it. If he'd seen the flicker and the shadowed stone around it. His eyes burned afterward, outlining the little fire where it had stood.

"Is someone there?" he tried, feeling stupid with his arms outstretched and his useless glasses and his limbs covered in bruises.

Another puff of fire, another glimpse around the cave. And there, in the instant of light, he saw it: a white-scaled monster. A sinewy, snake-like thing, entwined around a stalactite. Then gone.

Dib heard it speak in the darkness. Its voice was deep and rasping, underused, echoing around him in the humming air.

"Yes."

Dib fought the urge to run. He knew he'd fall and break his face and that would be the end of it. He fought the urge to curl up into a ball on the ground. His body went tight, jaw clenched, hands into fists, trying to hold himself together in his fear.

"Who are you?"

"Your kind called us dragons. Once."

Dib heard the lofty tone. It said "dragon" the way he would have said "paranormal investigator." With a pride that might not have been entirely fitting.

"You don't look much like a dragon. Dragons are supposed to have wings."

"Hmph!"

With a flash of flame, so close that Dib felt the hot blush against his chest, the dragon lit the room once again. Just for an instant. Just long enough for him to make out the long muzzle inches from his face, the dripping fangs and pale, scaled skin.

It breathed heavily on his collarbone. Breath cooler than his own.

Then everything was dark again. Dib shuddered silently in the black, with the creature so close, afraid that a sneeze or spasm would cost him his throat.

"Sorry. I guess that was out of line," he managed, his face turned away from the scaly presence that he felt so near.

"It was. Don't you _beasts_ usually carry torches? Pitchforks? That sort of thing?" The dragon gave a little snarl with the word _beast _that made Dib stumble back a bit.

"Uh…I had a flashlight before. The batteries went dead, and-"

"Flashlight? What sort of weapon is that, boy?"

The voice boomed around him. Dib squinted pointlessly, looking for even the vaguest pinprick of light. Something to focus on. Anything that wasn't featureless and still.

"It's not a weapon. Or it wasn't, anyway. And I didn't mean to get lost in the dark. I came down here looking for-"

The word caught in his throat.

"For what?" came the hissing whisper and misting saliva.

"For monsters."

The void pressed in on them both. Nothingness thick with bad portent. Dib bit his bottom lip and felt his eyes starting to water.

"There are plenty of those on the surface, you know, boy."

"I know. But maybe if you could just-just show me the way back, I could get out of your hair and then-"

The voice snarled, throwing words into his face. Dib wished himself invisible. "And then what? You'd send a battalion back to destroy the rest of us? Is that it?"

"No!" he gasped. "No. I'm an investigator. I study things that no one else believes in! Why would I want to destroy something that justifies my entire life's work?"

Dib tried not to hear the echoes of deeper meanings in his words. He tried instead to listen for any sound of movement as the dragon continued to breathe on him. He waited for the feeling of fangs against his neck or fire in his face.

Instead he felt something brush his hand. Dib recoiled away, yelping a gasped "Nngh!" at the touch. It was cool and slick, muscular, and he tried to pull away as it wrapped tightly around his wrist.

"Keep still, two-legs. You'll frighten the fish, with all that yelping. The surface is this way."

The beast's tail yanked him roughly forward by the hand. Catching himself, Dib stumbled blindly on as the creature led him.

Dib wanted to be frightened. This thing was huge and strong and could clearly see in the dark and could breathe _fire_, whether it was a dragon or not. It could easily be dragging him to his death.

Something in Dib's brain always prioritized fascination over fear. That part of his brain was thinking about what forces of natural selection would cause an underground animal to evolve a prehensile tail. And that part of his brain forced him somewhat unadvisedly to ask:

"So what's a dragon doing down here, if you don't mind me asking?"

The reliable clicking of the beast's claws against the rocky ground came to a halt. Feeling the tail tighten and his stomach bump against a scaly back, Dib stopped walking.

"We did not choose this home. Your kind forced us underground," it snapped, shortly. Dib heard the warning growl in the voice in the darkness.

When the dragon started walking again it nearly yanked his arm out of its socket.

"Oh. Sorry. About that, I mean. Humanity…well, we can kind of be jerks sometimes. Some of us. I like humanity in general. Just…not…humans individually. Not all the time, anyways," Dib rambled, his voice trailing off at the ends. It felt nice to speak and be heard after spending so long in the creaking silence.

The dragon gave a little scoffing laugh, its fiery breath lighting the cave around them for an instant. Dib saw light reflecting off of crystal walls and water-slicked stone, the bleach-white beast lumbering in front of him as they walked. Then all was blackness again.

"That seems like quite a fine distinction to be making."

"I don't think so. Besides, it'd be too easy for me to give up on the whole saving humanity business if I sat around thinking about how annoying all of us individually are," Dib said into the darkness. He kicked around thoughts of the bullies at school, of the perverts in the news and the warlords across the seas.

He'd have given up years ago if he brooded too much over that.

"Saving humanity? I find it hard to believe that any such messiah would be stumbling around down here in the dirt," growled the dragon.

Dib was used to being so disregarded. Not really by dragons, but the general tone was the same. "Well, see, there's this alien that wants to destroy the world. I'm the only one who can stop him."

"What's so bad about that? I don't see that anything in this world is particularly envious. Maybe this alien will bring about an even better one."

Dib thought for a moment, and then gave his head a violent shake. "No, I don't think that's very likely."

They were walking uphill now, he noticed. Occasionally he'd skid and slip on the loose soil, but always the beast's tail pulled him upright. Maybe it was his imagination, but the air started to taste a little different. Fresh and wet. Not quite so still.

And then there it was. They turned a corner, Dib banging his knee against the edge of it as they went, and he saw a pinpoint of light glimmering at the end of the passage.

Dib tried to contain the hope blossoming in his chest. The dragon might still eat him.

The light burned his eyes, scorching thoughts from his brain. It was the most beautiful pain he'd ever known. Dib took deep, sucking breaths of the fresh air and for the briefest instant, forgot himself.

He made a mad dash for the exit. Only a few steps in, his wrist snapped backwards and he fell back against the dragon's side. For the first time since being down here, he managed to get a good look at it. The beast wasn't staring at him. Instead, it had milky eyes that gazed off into the distance, fixed in a blunt-snouted skull. Blind.

It did live in the dark, he supposed. What a fate for a species, though, especially one so sentient. Pushed underground by a more aggressive race, reduced to scrabbling around in the depths for sustenance. Trickling into oblivion.

Dib felt something shudder in his spine. This would be humanity if Zim got his way.

The dragon must have felt his shudder. It released him, snorting derisively, and turning its great bulk away from the light.

"Get out. Your kind makes the air smell foul down here," it snapped.

"Right. Thanks for…for helping me find the way out. I probably would have tasted good. If you ever need any help from a human, my name's Dib," he said.

"Huh. Fine."

With that, it descending back down into the blackness, becoming a lumbering sliver of silver until the cave's abyss swallowed it up. Maybe he heard the soft splashing of water as it slipped into one of the underground pools. Dib couldn't be sure.

He likely would have stood there a long time in the semi-dark, brain thick with ponderings and colors warping weirdly in his eyes, if it hadn't been for the yelling he heard outside. Turning to the light, Dib fell down onto his hands and knees and forced himself out into the open air. The voice was getting louder, closer, more annoyed.

"Dib!" it called, half-rasping, "Dib! Get your stupid butt over here! I hope you know that I _will_ fill your room with corpses if you don't show yourself."

Dib dragged himself to his feet, glancing down at his clothes as he did so. Every inch of him was coated with dirt or caked with mud, his fingernails black and his jacket stained. Even his messenger bag was filthy.

"I'm over here, Gaz!" he called, finally. Despite all his underground travels, he hadn't gotten very far on the surface – the grasslands around here looked mostly the same as they had at the cave's entrance.

"-And don't even get me started on what's going to happen to that weird box under your bed."

A head of violet hair breached one of the hills nearby as Gaz trotted toward him. She had her arms crossed over her chest, stomping over to him with a heavy-browed grimace.

"How did you know where to look for me?" Dib asked. He started to dust himself off, noticing how Gaz very pointedly stepped out of the way so that she wasn't downwind of him.

"You left this-" she held up his map "-in your computer printer. Dad's pretty pissed. I hope you at least found a smaller head or a girlfriend down there."

"Nope, nothing like that. Sorry."

He gave a little shrug. Gaz heaved a sigh at him, rolling her eyes dramatically and storming back off across the grassy hills. "You better give me a ride home."

"Sure." Dib tossed one final look over his shoulder at the hole in the earth. He'd hoped to see a final flicker of light or whisper of the world below, but there was nothing. Turning back to his sister, he followed her toward the stand of trees where Tak's ship was parked.

* * *

_I read on Wikipedia that there's a species of blind salamander that lives in caves. Ancient peoples would find them in the rivers after big rains and thought that they were baby dragons, and that the adults lived under the earth's crust in order to be safe from human hunters. _

_Okay also maybe I've been playing a lot of Skyrim but what it's not like that's a crime or anything. _

_I'd have to say that I probably relate the strongest to the element of earth. I'm a very earth person. Maybe that's why Dib is my favorite, who knows. Maybe that's also why this chapter is a little weird and description-heavy and pseudo-philosophical. Guess that was just me letting my element get the better of me._

_And if none of that worked for you, then feel free to complain at me. If it did, I'd love to hear about that too!_

_Anyway, our last chapter with Gaz should be up in a week or so. Thanks so much, everyone, for all your positive feedback! You're awesome : )_


	4. Gaz under Water

_I'm really sorry for the delay in getting this up, you guys. Last week was just laziness, and this week was sickness/GREs/bad internet. BUT here's Gaz's chapter, kindly proofread by the lovely Alohilani. _

_This one gave me trouble from day one. I'd like to thank Hercules3000 and PuddingNinja for suggesting how water could be tied into Gaz's emotional state and though processes. EarthGeeksMustDie on Tumblr also suggested relating Gaz to body of water, which was super cool of her. _

_I really wanted to relate this to ice somehow, as Senri recommended, but I brainstormed for days and days and this was what came out._

* * *

**Element:** Water

**Humor:** Phlegmatic

**Associated Traits:** Lazy, passive, flexible, even-tempered, reliable

Of course their dad would buy a boat.

Gaz didn't really pay attention to _why_. That sort of thing wasn't her concern. Maybe the Professor had wanted to get something that would motivate the three of them to spend more time together. Maybe he just wanted to blow a ton of money on something useless and high-maintenance (Gaz had to admit that she'd preferred a boat to a girlfriend in that regard, anyway).

Dib loved the stupid thing. He loved running radar scans through the lake for monsters and he loved fishing for radioactive fish off of the side.

On the drive down, she tended to just keep her headphones plugged into her Gameslave. It was all she could do to tune Dib out because he would ramble on and on at full-volume with no one to discourage him.

"Man! I am SO EXCITED about the checking the readings on those water-testing probes that I left last time. According to this article, if the ammonia levels in the water have risen more than 0.05%, then that means there's definitely some kind of multi-ton organism living in the lake. Here, Gaz, look at this awesome chart!" Dib gushed, leaning across the leather car seat towards her with a handful of text-heavy papers.

She recoiled from him, pressing herself against the car door, feeling the handle dig into her side uncomfortably. "Stop it, Dib. Geez. I don't want to read your stupid paper."

"Are you sure? I have one here about the circulatory systems of vampires that you might like." A few of the papers fell onto the seat as he started pulling folders out of the bag he'd stored at his feet.

"No, really, I'm good." The volume on her game was turned all the way up, but Gaz could still make him out through the water level's panicked music. Water levels were the worst.

"Here it is! Look at all these sources! I even think that Dr. Summers might have helped research this one," he said, as if that name was supposed to mean anything to her.

The next thing she knew, Dib was waving papers under her nose, blocking her view of the Gameslave screen. She heard the disappointing , bleeping tone through her headset that meant she'd just lost a man. Growling, Gaz grabbed her brother's wrist and shoved him forcibly back onto his side of the seat, ignoring his pained "nngh!" sound.

"I. Don't. Give. A. Tiny. Rat's. Butt. About. That. Paper. Got it?"

For a second or two she held his arm at the weird angle, like disciplining a dog. When she finally let go of him, Dib squished himself as far away from her as he could get, rubbing at his hand.

"Okay, alright. Sorry. I just thought-"

"Well, that's never really been your strong suit, has it?"

He hunched his shoulders a bit. "Just forget I said anything."

"No problem."

Gaz returned to her game, to the obnoxious water level. She got very close to re-entering her "Zone," the button-mashes coming to her like reflexes as their car bumped along the country roads. Finally, just when the boss battle loomed ahead, she heard their father acknowledge the little scuffle.

"Are you kids doing alright back there?" The Professor asked, only half-turning as he kept his gloved hands stoically in the 2 o'clock and 10 o'clock positions on the steering wheel.

"Actually, I'm-" Dib began.

"Yes." Gaz spoke over him.

"Good. We're almost to the lake, you know."

Glancing out the window, Gaz saw that they were getting very close. The power lines and smoggy sky of the city had given way to saws of trees and a cloudy white overcast, dotted with blue. Off in the distance she could make out craggy mountaintops, barely moving as their station wagon bumped along the badly-maintained country roads.

It was enough to make her sick, all this _nature_.

The next thing she knew, their dad had pulled over next to the docks. The car shifted ever so slightly around them as the Professor threw the car into "park," but even that wasn't enough to get Gaz to turn off her Gameslave. She started another level, even as Dib was piling out of the seat next to her and her Dad popped the trunk and started unloading the cooler.

"Daughter, I packed you peanut-butter and honey. That way it's a complete protein with a natural source of carbohydrates!" he called to her from outside.

"Okay."

"Don't you want to come help us load up the boat?"

"Not really."

"It will be a good source of cardiovascular exercise AND a valuable source of family bonding time!"

"I'm good," she called back, still wedged in her seat, as she listened to Dib and her Dad shifting boxes around outside. Occasionally one of their heads would bob by the window, carrying rope or gasoline or food or soda back and forth to the boat. These stupid trips were never her idea – let _them_ do all the work. If she'd had her way, they would have stayed home and watched movies and ordered pizza.

When the Professor slammed the trunk shut, she started to realize that eventually she'd have to get out of the car.

Dib wasn't patient enough to wait for her – he threw open the car door on her side, ducking out of the way as she nearly tumbled out onto the ground.

"Sorry! C'mon, Gaz, we're getting ready to get on the boat now. Everything's been unloaded. You could have helped a little bit, you know," he told her, planting one hand on his hip.

"Didn't sound like my kind of thing."

He looked at her for a second, head cocked to the side, his laptop half-slipping from where he had it jammed up under one arm. Then he gave a little quiet scoff and turned away, heading toward the dock.

Gaz rolled her eyes and slid her Gameslave into her back pocket as she hopped out of the car. Maybe Dib was finally figuring out that she just wanted to be left alone.

She wasn't banking on it.

The boat that their father had bought was a fairly decent one – it had a little cabin below deck and four engines and a bunch of other boaty-things going for it that Gaz imagined only guys who wore a lot of smoking jackets would care about. By the time she stepped carefully aboard, the Professor had already put on his ridiculous captain's hat. It went very badly with his lab coat.

"There you are, daughter! Are you all ready for our day of lake fun?" He said excitedly, hands on his hips (very Dib-like. Or maybe the other way around).

Gaz tossed a glance up toward him, jamming her hands down in her pockets. Raining on Dib's parade was one thing, but Gaz didn't get to spend sixteen hours a day with her dad. It averaged out to more like sixteen hours a month.

If she hurt his feelings, if she struck him down, it might end up being less.

"Yeah, sure. I guess."

It was the best she could do.

Gaz was lucky to have a father so difficult to discourage.

"Well that's just fantastic! Your brother is ready to go as well. Just let me activate these engines and we can be on our seafaring way!" He rested on hand on her shoulder and Gaz felt a little warm shudder pass through her. A frightening whisper of safety and affection. She was too big now to be picked up like he'd done when she was small.

Gaz pulled herself very carefully away from him.

"Cool."

"Do you want to help me steer the boat out of the harbor? Like you used to when you were a tiny frightening child?" he asked her.

"…I don't think so. I think I'll just go sit by the bow." And then as an afterthought, after she'd already started to walk away: "Thanks, though."

"That's alright. Maybe your brother would like to help!"

Her father and brother suited one another better anyway – they were always talking, arguing, interacting, even if only to hear their own voices. Gaz preferred silence. She cast a wary eye up at the sky as she made her way to the bow of the boat - up towards the front, where a lawn chair was parked tackily along the railing.

The sky was looking a little dark.

Whatever. Not her problem. Gaz settled herself down in the lawn chair, her feet propped up on the railing that ran around the length of the boat.

Before long they'd shipped off. The deck began rocking steadily beneath her chair as the shore faded from view. Gaz only noticed these things on occasion, when she reached a slow spot in her game and bothered to look up.

Soon Dib had hooked his computer up to a few radar devices that he'd installed on the boat and was merrily gathering data. Beyond him, their father was half steering the boat and half eying Dib as he worked.

It was only when the darkness in the sky started washing out her screen that Gaz got up from her chair, clicking her game reluctantly off.

She kept her back to the boys and walked over to the railing, looking out across the lake.

The storm was getting closer. Gaz felt the air getting heavy around the boat, as wind blew foamy waves up against the sides.

Some energy crackled in the air as the storm grew, sinking into her bones, stirring at that glaze of apathy that gripped her most days. Gaz stepped up close to the little boat's railing and took hold of the bars, locking herself in place. The shoreline was getting difficult to see in the haze (not that her near-constant squinting made it much easier).

Dib's screaming broke her trance. She cast a half-glare across the deck, at where he was clustered around a handful of beeping monitors and sonar outputs, her father standing stiffly beside him.

"Look, dad! I'm getting a reading for a multi-ton freshwater organism. Likely reptilian. Judging by sound outputs, I'd guess that it has lungs instead of gills…" Dib rambled on. Gaz got cranky and exhausted just listening to him.

"Those numbers don't seem statistically varied from the control. Let me see what algorithms you're using…"

Across the water, off in the distance, Gaz saw a bolt of lightning shoot to the ground. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three…

The argument between her father and brother was cut cleanly in two by a low rumbling. Thunder crashed, loud with the lake's help, rattling around them, shuddering deep in her chest.

When Gaz looked back around, both of the boys were staring dumbstruck up at the sky. A shot of lightning flashed again, reflected on Dib's glasses and the Professor's goggles. Both with the same slack-jawed look of any scientist confronted with something outside of their field.

"I didn't realize it was so close," Dib said. Typical.

"Well, these summer storms tend to have exaggerated energy, and-"

Another crack of thunder sounded. Gaz tightened her grip around the guardrail. Darkness was beginning to slide over them, nightfall in high-speed as the sky seeped black like a bruise. The rushing roar of the water grew louder with the cutting wind.

Gaz felt little stings of water strike at her face, soaking her bare hands. The storm was nearly here.

Behind her, fumbling around in their too-practical world, she heard the boys as they struggled to get Dib's equipment under some shelter. The boat did have a cabin down below deck, and the two of them managed to get the last of the laptops and sensors and hard drives to safety just as the rain picked up.

Or at least Gaz figured as much. She wasn't really paying attention to their scraping and yelping. She was watching the downpour, raindrops shooting from the sky like missiles and exploding into the surface of the lake. The deck bucked beneath her feet and she braced her legs far apart to keep from stumbling. She thought back to all the times that the girls at school had told her that she stood like a boy.

Gaz locked her knees and stayed where she was.

Over the crashing water, the hulking thunder, the hissing wind, she heard Dib calling.

"Gaz! C'mon! You need to get below deck! The storm's going to knock you overboard!" he begged.

In her mind's eye Gaz saw him, his hair-spike plastered down in front of his face, glasses wet and useless, that wide-eyed fearful stare.

She didn't turn to look at him. She only moved to tuck her soaking bangs behind her ear so that they didn't block her vision.

"I'm fine," she insisted.

And she was. Not comfortable, necessarily, because the rain was cold and soaked her to the bone and the wind froze her to the railing and as the ship kicked back and forth she felt her insides twitch warningly. But she liked the look of the lake in storm. She liked watching water meet water so volatile, amidst the dropping air pressure and black-veiled shore.

Gaz remembered her father's explanation of the origin of life. He'd told her that the ancient primordial seas swam with hunks of carbon and nitrogen, floating gelatinous between drops of water. It was water that held them together, and when the lightning bolts of bygone storms struck the surface, it was the beginnings of organic life that were created. That was how water had birthed all life, without acting in a single way of its own accord. Water just did what it always did. It hosted. Water was still and passive. It followed gravity, slid into containers and followed the gale force of winds, but it never exerted itself.

"Gaz!" her annoying brother's voice broke her thoughts, "Gaz! I'm coming to get you!"

"I'm FINE!" she snarled, angry that he dared to interrupt her meditation. Gaz had only ever asked for one thing: to be left alone. She'd never understood how _not_ doing something could be so difficult for him.

Her fingers seemed to creak as she let go of the railing, finally looking over at Dib.

He'd nearly made it halfway across the deck to her. In the sheeting rain his black form was difficult to make out, even with his billowing jacket and his boots braced far apart like a child learning to walk.

"Dib! Get your stupid hide back in the cabin! It's just a storm!" she yelled at him over nature's roaring.

"No! It's really dangerous out here and dad said-"

"I don't care. Leave me the hell alone! Can't you get it through your freakish giant head? I don't want your help! No one _ever_ wants your help!"

A bolt of lightning shot into the water, not too far from their shuddering boat. For an instant Gaz saw Dib perfectly illuminated amidst the rainy haze. She saw his slumped shoulders, his black hair clinging to his face along with his coat, tight against his body like skin. He looked small and fragile and thin in the lightning's shadows.

Then, not an instant later, came the thunder. It crackled in the air and broke over them both like a bomb. Gaz felt her muscles tighten at the storm's sudden rage.

She still did better than Dib. Darkness fell over them once again, and the black lump that was her brother threw himself to the slick deck in a panic.

The boat jerked to the side just as he fell, boots scraping against the polished wood. Before he could catch himself, the stupid boy slid all the way to the edge of the deck and his skinny form slipped under the railing.

Gaz stared at where he'd been. She stared at the black water closing in over his head into a frothy wave until it seemed like he'd never existed at all.

Maybe she heard their father give a strangled cry from the cabin – there wasn't any way to tell in the roaring of the storm.

Thoughts crashed against each other inside her brain. Each second that ticked by was a second that Dib's head failed to reappear on the surface.

Maybe those stupid boots were weighing him down.

Maybe he'd gotten tangled in his jacket.

Maybe he'd inhaled some water and –

She stopped the thought before it started and hurled herself over the railing after him.

The water was freezing, violent, swirling around like a living thing. It forced the air out of her lungs and for an instant Gaz was afraid she'd made a massive mistake. Two skeletons at the bottom of the lake instead of one.

She managed to take a breath, treading water with already heavy limbs, and then dove below the surface.

It was shockingly calm underwater. Still and quiet – at least, much moreso than up above, where the thunderstorm was still raging. She opened her eyes in the darkness and felt the cold water sting at her skin. And there, just a few feet below, she saw light glinting off of Dib's glasses as he flailed around in the depths.

Getting weaker. His eyes half-open, a sick bubble leaking out of his mouth. Gaz reached down through the darkness and grabbed her brother by his arm and wrenched him upwards.

They broke the surface together. Coughing, sputtering, throwing water up all over each other but at least breathing. Gaz felt air rocket into her lungs and warm her up in the strangest way.

"Gaz!" Dib tried to gasp, "I-"

"Shut it!" she rasped back at him, barely managing to keep them both afloat as the wind numbed her face. With a bit of awkward flailing she treaded water back to the boat and grabbed hold of the bottom railing.

To her relief, mild though it was, the Professor was already waiting for them. He leaned over the side and grabbed the back of Dib's jacket and Gaz felt a little lurch as he hooked his other arm around her middle. When she was little he'd picked her up all the time, of course – to carry her around his lab or help her reach something tall.

She'd made the casual assumption that her father wasn't strong enough to pick her up anymore. Clearly, she'd been wrong.

He dumped the two of them onto the deck of the ship – closer to the cabin where the wood was a little dryer. Next to her, Gaz heard Dib panting and gasping and rattling against the floorboards as he started to shake.

She laid her head against the ground, staring up at the bone-grey sky. The rain had let up a bit, falling in a spattered spread. It looked like flying. Then again, maybe she was just exhausted and oxygen-deprived, but the airy lightheadedness settled over her nonetheless.

"Are two alright?"

The Professor's voice hit her, sounding distant and scared and unnatural in how many ways. She didn't like it.

"Yeah."

And then, a few seconds later, from Dib:

"I think so."

Out of the corner of her vision she saw his black form pull itself up, monolithic against the sky. Soon their father was looming over them both, his head tilted to one side, goggles fogged in the humidity.

"That was very impressive, Gaz. Going after your brother like that. The bond between siblings is very-"

"It wasn't anything," she said quickly, nudging herself up onto her elbows.

Dib turned to her, words working their way out between his chattering teeth: "Gaz, c'mon, it was! I could've-"

"You would have been fine."

"But can't I just-"

"Drop it."

She felt suffocated, suddenly. Both of the boys were looking at her – impressed, concerned, affectionate – and it was weird and stressful and if she'd known that ten minutes ago she might have just let Dib alone.

Maybe.

Gaz got to her feet, squeegeeing water out of her hair with a few fingers. She turned her back on them both and stalked over to the side of the boat. Holding tightly to the railing this time.

The storm was breaking up. Soft light leaked down through the broken cloud cover, dancing brightly across the water. Gaz crossed her arms over her chest and shivered even in the sunlight. She was still wet and cold over all that diving overboard business.

Behind her she heard the two of them moving around, stomping their boots. Probably getting Dib a blanket and starting to pilot toward the shore. Finally. Maybe they'd finally had enough of these stupid day trips.

She felt something on her back. Gaz twisted her head around, prepared to punch Dib one if he was trying to hug her. Instead it was the Professor – he'd taken off his lab coat and set it carefully around her shoulders. The collar itched against her face.

Underneath he was wearing a "Membrane Laboratories Cookout – 1994" tee-shirt, apparently. He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze and then wandered off toward the helm.

Gaz wrapped the coat around her, tightly, afraid it might blow off. It was warmer than she'd expected. Coated in dad-smell that had always been the same. When she looked down she saw that the bottom four inches or so of fabric dragged the wet ground. It would be alright. He had others.

There was more movement behind her – more boot-stomping – and Dib was suddenly there by her side. Leaning on the railing, staring out at the calming lake, adjusting his wet glasses.

She waited for him to say something. To ramble, congratulate, thank, to add words where none were needed. She'd just done what needed to be done. His commentary wouldn't add anything.

Maybe he was finally getting it.

Dib stayed quiet. Only the sound of his raspy breathing and the washing of the water all around.

The two of them stood in silence alongside each other. It was nice, for once. Just being. Gaz could nearly smell the awkwardness leaching off of Dib as he tried not to talk and instead fidgeted and shook. She smiled to herself, a very small one, well-hidden by the collar of her father's lab coat wrapped around her.

They managed not to talk for the entire ride back to the shore.

* * *

"_Emotionally stunted" isn't really a quality associated with water, but laziness and passiveness certainly are. I just decided to stretch the definitions into emotional passivity in order to fit Gaz a little better. I'm willing to go with an interpretation of her in which she's so unwilling to make an emotional commitment in any direction (either to loving or hating her brother, for instance) that she defaults to not doing anything at all most of the time. _

_I guess this is the end, everyone! I want to thank you all so much for sticking around, being patient, and leaving wonderful reviews! These have been really fun to work on. Now we get into the scary part: I'm going to have to start working on another multi-chaptered fic. So it might be a while before you hear from me again. Until then, guys, you've all been amazing! _


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